


Of Fears and Dreams

by ca_te



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Confessions, Developing Relationship, M/M, Romance, set during episode 10
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-16
Updated: 2016-12-16
Packaged: 2018-09-09 01:07:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8869810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ca_te/pseuds/ca_te
Summary: Things had never been clear cut with Victor and Yuuri had always thought he was fine with it. However, the more they moved forward along this path that they had chosen for themselves, the more Yuuri found he needed to know. What would be of them after the Grand Prix Final?





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a lovely prompt I got on Tumblr: in ep10 when Victor comes back from the pool he asks Yuuri to draw him a bath, so basically, Yuuri & Victor bath together then, and talk deep intimate stuff?
> 
> Feel free to leave me prompts [here](http://bluecloudsupabove.tumblr.com/ask)
> 
> <3

The muffled silence of the hotel room was suffocating, the stillness of waiting - for the beginning of the Grand Prix Final, for the inevitable conclusion of the blessed parenthesis that having Victor in his life had been - was almost unbearable. Fear solidified once more, in the thin space between Yuuri’s lungs. Memories of the shame, the guilt of last year’s Grand Prix flowed in, filling his mind up until breathing became harder.

He had asked Victor to remain his coach until he retired. But what had he meant by that? 

Hiding his face into the pillow, Yuuri wished he could be somewhere else entirely, somewhere soft and warm. He wished Victor were there.

“Help me, Victor.” It was a whisper, a prayer muttered in the space of an exhale. 

As if on cue, the door slammed open, sending Yuuri’s heart thudding against his ribcage.

“Yuuri! I am freezing! Please draw a hot bath.” Victor’s voice gushed into the room like summer breeze. It tugged at Yuuri’s scared heart, like wind blowing a kite back towards the sky. 

It never failed to do that, not even after the harshest of falls.

*

Victor’s breath was warm against his ear as Yuuri tested the water’s temperature. Victor was leaning in too close, as usual. It made Yuuri’s thoughts derail, like sparrows losing track of their way.

“Is it ready?”

A childish petulance laced the other man’s words. Not for the first time, Yuuri found himself briefly imagining a younger Victor. Was he a demanding child or was he quiet and reserved? Victor had never opened up about the tender, private parts of his past. The whole world knew who he was on the ice, but no one knew about who he was before then or once out of the rink. 

Somehow Yuuri thought he could read traces of that past in the perfect lines of Victor’s body when he skated, in his need to be close, always close.

Was he as lonely as I was?

“Yuuri...Hurry up, I’m really cold, can’t you feel it?”

Victor’s hand felt like an ice cube at his nape and Yuuri all but yelped. 

“All right, you can get it. I didn’t want you to get scalded.”

“That’s so sweet of you, Yuuri.”

Victor’s smile filled his vision. It still took him aback, how carefree Victor looked all the time, how at ease he was around him. 

“It is just a bath, Victor”, he mumbled, his traitorous heart thudding a bit faster in its cage. Truth was all this was still very new to Yuuri. The intimacy between them after that first kiss. Rained on him as a surprise, treasured like the most precious gift. 

Victor’s tenderness, the way he now touched him - deliberate, always tinged with some meaning just beyond Yuuri’s grasp - made him flustered and unbelievably happy at the same time.

“C’mon, Yuuri. Come here.”

He could still feel the fear and the worry from earlier glued to his skin, sticky and dirty. Victor was already scooting backwards in the tub, an inviting smile on his lips. Yuuri blinked, he shouldn’t focus on them, not now when he was about to have a bath with his...what were they, really? The thought came unbidden and powerful, like thunder. 

Yuuri undressed, giving his back to Victor. Student, friend, lover...words kept overlapping in his mind, thoughts getting murkier. Things had never been clear cut with Victor and Yuuri had always thought he was fine with it. However, the more they moved forward along this path that they had chosen for themselves, the more Yuuri found he needed to know. What would be of them after the Grand Prix Final?

He silently slid into the water, his heart painfully heavy. 

“What’s with that face, Yuuri? You hate bathing with me that much?”

Yuuri took in a shaky breath.

“That’s not it, I…”

Victor’s fingers brushed lightly at his temples, gently removing his glasses.

“These won’t be any good with all this steam.”

His eyes were soft, his voice gentle. It made longing unfurl inside Yuuri like a flower.

“Victor…”

“Talk to me, Yuuri.”

Victor was leaning forward, his legs opened wide so that Yuuri could fit. It was the first time they had ever been in this position while having a bath. It seemed his whole relationship with Victor was a string of first times and revelations.

“I...I’m scared.”

It tumbled past his lips like a secret, nestling between them.

Victor’s fingers in his hair came both as a surprise and as a relief.

“What are you so scared about?”

Of loving you. Of losing you.

“Of messing up as I did last year.”

Yuuri let himself slide deeper into the hot water. He knew it was a lie, but what could he say? He wasn’t brave enough to voice these fears. Wouldn’t they make him look childish and stupid? Would Victor still deem him worthy of his affection?

Victor tugged lightly at his hair.

“Yuuri...why don’t you tell me the truth? Not as your coach but as your…”

A knot tightened in Yuuri’s throat.

“As my what? Victor, this...what are we?”

It was out there in the open, the deepest of fears, the most feral of worries. Yuuri watched as Victor tilted his head to the side.

“Well, we are we. You and me.”

“V-Victor that’s not what I meant, I...we never talked about that and…”

“What did I tell you at the airport, when you came back from Russia?” Victor’s tone was hard, his eyes glinting slightly in the half-light of the bathroom.

“That you would be my coach until I retire?”

Victor shook his head and something cold ghosted over Yuuri’s heart.

“No, I told you that I wished you’d never retire.” Victor’s tone was gentler then, his hand coming up to cup Yuuri’s face.

“You truly have no idea of what you mean to me, do you?”

Yuuri swallowed dry, his heart swinging in his ribcage.

“What…”

“Before I arrived in Japan, I was stuck. All that had propelled me forward seemed to have exhausted itself. I had always thought that I had to find the strength in myself, but I had just stopped.”

Yuuri allowed himself to take hold of Victor’s hand, squeezing gently. I am here. I am not going to let you go.

“Then I saw that video of you skating my routine and I thought that there was still something worth discovering. You might think I saved your skating, Yuuri, but the truth is...you saved me.”

Everything went still, Yuuri’s thoughts settled like tired birds on branches, his breath stuttered. He had been aware of the depths and the meaning of his love for Victor for a while, but he couldn’t have said to know the contours of what Victor himself carried inside. 

“I…”

Victor’s finger was warm against his lips.

“I know you find it hard to believe, but life and love were two words without a meaning, before I got to know you, Yuuri Katsuki.”

Victor’s smile was small and devastatingly delicate, like a rose bud. And just like that Yuuri knew all this was real, they were real - something to nurture, something to treasure.

There had been three kisses in total. The first one at the cup of China - crowd cheering and the ice cold at his nape - a second one back in Hasetsu - a sweet brushing of lips after he landed his first quadruple flip in practice - and then a goodnight kiss once he got back from Moscow, heart shaken and longing cursing through his veins. It had always been Victor to initiate them. 

This time, though, was different. This time Victor had unlocked that tiny door that he had kept shut for months and Yuuri had to be there to protect Victor’s heart. So red, so strong and yet so delicate, not that different from his own. 

He could feel Victor instantly relaxing into the kiss, as if he was born to do just that, kiss Yuuri and make him fall in love a bit more, a bit faster.

*

Yuuri looked at their hands, the matching bands glinting under the church’s lights, and something went off inside his heart. A strong wind dilating his love, spreading its wings.


End file.
